When you think about it, it is very weird that most people get the choice of whether or not to create another another human being, but I'm very happy we live in a world where we do (mostly) get to make that choice. And, frankly, I'm not super good at decisions. Katherine and I can't decide where to go for dinner most nights, let alone whether we want to un-alterably change our lives forever.

But now that I've been a parent for BASICALLY NO TIME AT ALL but while I'm still a little bit capable of remembering what my life was like before I was a dad...I just wanted to share some thoughts.

Good Morning John. For the Project For Awesome last year, Travis McElroy and I did a one-off podcast called the Dadcast, a podcast in which two brand new dads answered questions about being new dads and the most common question we got was how do you decide? How do you make this tremendous, tremendous decision?

So I'm going to start this video off by answering the question, you don't know. It's like deciding to buy 378 bottles of olives if you've never had an olive. You just won't know what a terrible awful poisonous turd-fruit they are until you put one in your mouth. Or alternately your child could be the finest piece of tree flesh you've ever consumed. This metaphor fell apart. Either way, you've got 378 jars of these things except they're a human being! I was never really opposed or enthusiastic about the idea of having a kid. Here is the crazy thing though, after six months I can tell you that my pros and cons list was wrong!

Here's some stuff that I should have had on my cons list, like the worst parts of parenthood. It's not the puking, the pooping, and the getting up in the middle of the night, and never sleeping a normal amount again. All of those things actually are surprisingly easy. Sometimes I even like being excessively needed by this adorable biscuit man. What I don't like: 1) The stress of knowing that my child could get ill at any moment, seriously. Or just generally something terrible might happen and while you can minimize risk, you cannot eliminate it. 2) Feeling like I'm doing it wrong. 3) Feeling like I can't do it at all. And when you have a human being who is depending on you for everything, feeling like you can't do it is a feeling of tremendous failure, even when it's fleeting, even when you know it's not true. I think everybody experiences this and it's just one of those "It gets better situations" 4) And this is kind of wrapped up in all of these, caring so much that it hurts.

I was also wrong about the reasons I would like having a kid. Llike I knew I was going to like having a little Catherine-Hank hybrid person. And that's nice but, here are the bigger and unexpected ones: 1) Embarking on a really big, new, interesting project with my wife, who is my favorite person. 2) I get to sing wherever I want to. As long as he's with me people will think it's cute and not weird. 3) I think I have a much better understanding of my parent's relationship with me, which is maybe hard to have unless you experience parenthood yourself. 4) I have a much better understanding of and am very impressed by the capabilities of both me and Catherine. 5) I really like doing a thing that is super normal. Like lots of people do this, but it's also magnificently important, and I know that. Like every piece of me unquestionably knows that being a dad is vitally important. 6) I love to look at him, which I didn't really expect. I love it so much that I show him to other people and I'm like, "I'm so sorry, that you don't get to stare at this all the time like I do" And finally 7) Caring so much, it hurts.

Again this video doesn't have any answers, it is just the perspective of one of billions of parents on earth. It is hard, I will tell you that, but also the hard things are the ones that are the most worth doing. And that's not an endorsement of having a kid, it's an endorsement of doing hard things. You are the only person who can decide whether you are ready to create a human. But final thing, if you are like me, and you assume that all the people who are talking about how great parenthood were just making it up so they would feel less bad about the terrible decision they made, i's not made up, it's actually really great. John, I'll see you on Tuesday.

End Screen, two things: First, the Kedicizdim shirts and stuff will only be available for another couple days, including we made a laptop decal because people were talking in the comments about how much they wanted a laptop decal. And two, John, you and I are going to be in Seattle December 9th and 10th for PodCon, a convention for people who love and make podcasts. We are doing it in partnership with Night Vale Presents team and those good, good, McElroy boys of My Brother, My Brother, and Me. podcon.com, we are doing a crowdfunding campaign right now to try and raise more money to get more cool guests. We just announced that Criminal is going to be there. If you want more information, podcon.com, there's also a bunch of social medias you can follow in the description. It's gonna be a good time.